releases: https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/blog/sen-king-and-hannah-dorr-of-north-yarmouth-highlight-benefits-of-affordable-care-act-for-people-with-pre-existing-conditions
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/blog/sen-king-and-hannah-dorr-of-north-yarmouth-highlight-benefits-of-affordable-care-act-for-people-with-pre-existing-conditions | Sen. King and Hannah Dorr of North Yarmouth Highlight Benefits of Affordable Care Act for People with Pre-Existing Conditions | 2013-12-12 | 2013 | 2013-12 | Independent | House | ME | Angus King | K000383 | www.king.senate.gov | legacy | Thursday, December 12, 2013 Sen. King and Hannah Dorr of North Yarmouth Highlight Benefits of Affordable Care Act for People with Pre-Existing Conditions Videos of both the Senator’s remarks and Hannah Dorr’s remarks have been included below: A complete transcript of Senator King’s remarks: I'm here because bad news gets halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes on. And all we hear is bad news and all we hear are examples of people that are having problems. But the quiet good news is that literally millions of Americans, for the first time, have been able to access quality healthcare at a reasonable price. And it's almost impossible to convey in words what that means to these families; people who have literally lived their lives with a cloud of not being able to having insurance to cover their children or themselves because they've had some healthcare issues in the past. I have two personal stories, and I think the fact that we all virtually have personal stories tells you how widespread the impact of this is. It's not just a few people, it's not somebody in Peoria or California, it's people right here in this building. 40 years ago I was fortunate enough to have a good healthcare coverage that included free physicals. And because of that, at the age of 28 or 29, I went in to have a routine physical, my first in 9 years. In the course of that routine physical, which was part of my healthcare coverage, which by the way is now preventive care that's provided under the Affordable Care Act to everyone, it was determined that I had a rare and aggressive form of cancer called malignant melanoma. And the thing about malignant melanoma is that you either get it in time and live, or you don't and you die. And I was fortunate enough that it was caught in time, I had surgery and fully recovered - here I am. But it has haunted me ever since that somewhere in America, that same year, was a young man or a young woman who didn't have health insurance, who didn't have access to a physical, that melanoma didn't get caught, and they're not here. And I can't justify that. I can't say why me and not them. To me this is beyond a political or an economic issue, it's a moral issue. And the reality is that in this country - there have been a variety of studies - but in this country there are now between 40 and 50 million people with no insurance, and the variety of studies have all concluded that somewhere between 25 and 50 thousand people a year die simply because they don't have health insurance. Simply because they don't have health insurance, because they didn't get treated in time, because they were afraid to go to the emergency room, because they went in and had treatment but it was too late. And that is sort of my personal reason for feeling so passionate about this. I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone in this country would exert any political effort whatsoever to keep people from having health insurance. The second personal story is that I have two children who are covered under my policy today who would not be were it not for the Affordable Care Act. One's 23 and one's 20. The 23 year old is out of school, he couldn't be under my coverage, but he is, and because of that he's able to have more flexibility in what he does for a career. As 23 year olds are sort of finding their way, he doesn't have to obsess about the fact that “I can only take a job that provides healthcare,” because he's covered under my coverage. And so as I say, I consider this a moral and an ethical issue. Not one of us, if someone was choking on the subway, would turn our back. Not one of us would say, "I'm sorry, that's not my problem." We would all try to help. And the Affordable Care Act is nothing but that impulse writ large. It's the impulse to help. And to say, "It's not my problem" is not our way as a people. And of course it's complicated and of course it's difficult, and there are growing pains, and the website didn't work very well, I can attest to that. But the impulse is right, the vision is right, the concept is right. And this idea that people can be denied, which they are, hundreds of thousands of people in Maine technically could be turned away, but for the Affordable Care Act, because of pre-existing conditions. And disease is no respecter of social class or economics or anything else. And that's why we need to be able to provide this kind of coverage to all of our citizens. A complete transcript of Hannah Dorr’s remarks have been included below: Thank you and good morning. At the age of 16 I was diagnosed with a rare progressive genetic heart disease called arrhythmiagenic right ventricular dysplasia, or ARVD. ARVD affects about 1 in 5,000 people, barely a big enough population to do a clinical trial. I always wanted to be special, so I guess I could say I've reached this goal. With ARVD, the scariest part is the unknown. Not much is certain about the disease: how to prevent progression, best treatments, and how specifically the disease will manifest itself as it advances, are all largely unknown. But I think the scariest part for my parents was the uncertainty of how I was going to afford insurance later in life with a pre-existing condition. For me, going into the individual market before the Affordable Care Act would mean astronomically high premiums and cost sharing that would be outside of my means, and caring for my disease would fall by the wayside. The Affordable Care Act not only allows me to stay on my parents' plan until I'm 26, a plan that gave me access to the top doctors, but gives me the certainty that there's an option for me should I no longer be covered by insurer-sponsored insurance. I consider myself fortunate that my ARVD was caught by chance by my pediatrician at an early age. I consider myself lucky that my family had top-of-the-line insurance that gave me access to the incredible team of doctors that cared for me, and did not send my family spiraling into debt and for the friends and family that helped pay extra costs such as travel expenses, by creating a charity in my name, Hearts for Hannah. But most of all I consider myself lucky that no matter what uncertainty there is in the future, there is now certainty that I will be able to find insurance within my means because of the Affordable Care Act. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |